


Jeremiah 29:11

by acsullivan



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fix it?, Little research was done here this is just cathartic, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Sacrilege?, Soft Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 04:20:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18652789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acsullivan/pseuds/acsullivan
Summary: Bucky’s heart had never been lighter. Years of blood were being washed from his palms, and he was being submerged in the only timeline he’d ever cared to recall.Alternatively titled "The Needle-thin Line Between Patience and Being Beaten Into Resignation"





	Jeremiah 29:11

**Author's Note:**

> I know it doesn't make genuine sense. I didn't want to get upset about Endgame on the basis of Bucky and Steve's relationship, but, truly, my hopes were demolished. I wrote this in one day and I hope it soothes the same wounds by which I know so many of you are being afflicted. Please, don't correct my incongruences; they're there on purpose because I'm tired of caring so much.  
> also: I'm not religious! At all!

**Jeremiah 29:11**

         Pain is, or was, typically associated with permanence, and sensations of ease conflated with the opposite. So when Bucky looked down to see his hands disappearing into dust, to ash, to hunks of black and brown and earth, light enough to be carried away by the Wakandan breeze, he wasn’t afraid. He was confused, more rather, and confused remained the word he used to describe those seconds of consciousness he had before his vision and auditory functions gave out.

         About midway through, when the fact that death was befalling him in a fashion even more peculiar than that which he’d seen or enacted before, he did what was natural: he called out to his sticking point. A head of dirtied blonde just a few paces away, maybe _he’d_ be able to catch Bucky and stop the sensation of bugs crawling in between his joints with his enchanted touch. It was worth a shot.

         But Bucky took the shot and missed. His voice came out all garbled and weak, his cadence barely touching the ears of whom it was intended to reach. When he finally turned Bucky’s weapon fell with a metallic clunk to his side, he buckled at the knees, those bugs cresting in their ventures, and then dissolved into nothing. To pieces. Bucky didn’t get to see the gentile, elegiac way his almost-savior ran his war-torn fingers through his own remains and was instead sentenced to blackness.

         It had been peaceful, too, dwelling in a state of nothingness so titanic and total that any light would’ve been an unwelcomed beacon, not a reprieve. Hell, Bucky started to think in that realm without either time nor space that he deserved this, not so much in the sense of any punishment but in the sense of release. He’d done so much fighting, so much waiting, so much killing and so much caring without reward that, if the universe wanted whatever had kept the heart between his ribs beating, he was willing to hand it over.

         He thought he did, too, thought he’d signed the blood contract and everything, until a thousand suns started burning where his chest used to be, and the whites of his eyes felt as though they were being seared in a frying pan. Every bone and muscle wrenched back into existence, snapped and popped back into place, dragged him from his darkness, and into the new fight he went. Halfway through his throat and vocal chords reemerged and he was given the ability to scream. Two thirds of the way through he was able to hear his own agony. Bucky never had the time to think about where he’d land, or into what he’d be tossed, or what Normandy he’d be storming again.

         The new battle scenery turned out to be certain hell, the likes of which Bucky couldn’t even recall from decades and decades passed. It was red skies and alien screeches, bullets and elemental swarms of energy threatening to burn off, electrocute, and freeze his insides and eyebrows in one punch. He couldn’t tell where this was, if he was Earth-bound or not, for he wouldn’t have been surprised if the battles touched other planets, solar systems, galaxies or even dimensions, but eventually his gaze fell onto Thanos and he gathered enough. This was all some massive, fucked up do-over that he had the pleasure of impacting.

         Sam Wilson emerged next to him, rotating his shoulders rapidly, bending his neck and relishing in the cracking noise it gave, all methods of diminishing the shock of it all. Bucky’d committed all such mechanisms before; he knew what they looked like. He couldn’t remember if Wilson had been beside him in their swirling demise, didn’t have the time to think on it too much, really, but the look of understanding they shared was enough. The nod was firm, the resolve palpable, and the way Wilson was able to track down Steve in an instant was nothing short of miraculous.

         All Bucky had to go on was that natural tugging of his heartstrings toward their sticking point, toward the hill they’d chosen to die on. Sam had the foresight, and the common knowledge, that Steve hated change and would surely be wearing his radio along his belt.

         Bucky would try to go over the specifics of how long that fight lasted an innumerable amount of times. He’d try to count his own shots, determine his accuracy, the way they used to do it in Hydra. He’d try to keep a hold on the way Stark snapped his own life to away like how Bucky’s brothers in arms used to throw themselves on grenades, blow themselves to smithereens for a greater good he always found blurry. Bucky would try to remember the way Steve wielded Thor’s hammer with the name he used to juggle in his mouth during sunny Wakandan days of healing: electricity draping Steve’s shoulders and biceps in blue sparks, casting neon reflections in eyes that were long since deemed too bright for the fates that repeatedly befell them. He tried to remember whether it was the thunder and lightning carrying Steve, or Steve carrying the power of an alien god, but gave up pretty quickly.

         By the time Stark’s body was gently transported inside and the initial wave of medicinal forces was being deployed (medicinal forces meaning anyone who wasn’t bleeding too much to help wrap a few bandages), Wilson and Bucky were suddenly inseparable friends, impossibly glad the other hadn’t perished a second time over and fervently discussing the grey clouding their common denominator’s eyes. Debating with such sourness, the way only old companions could, Wilson couldn’t stomach Steve’s passivity toward them both, while Bucky resigned himself to the belief that Steve was new and tired. Five years took a toll. His patience had grown stale and battle-charred.

 

**\---**

 

         And Sam Wilson wasn’t having any of it.

         Buck was knelt beside a girl no older than fourteen who, fortunately, was more interested in the massive installment of silver on his arm, or what looked to her to be metal. It wasn’t until he set her leg back in place that she gave a harsh yelp and clutched his flesh arm for support, tears welling up. He gave her a sad, small smile and assured her that she’d done well.

         She had. Everyone still standing had done well, well enough to be spared a secondary demise even more painful than the first. Bucky wasn’t sure how intact his Catholic roots were – he hadn’t really considered them in years, he recalled – but paused to wonder if this was one of those signs from God he was supposed to be marveling at. Because, all things taken into account, the death toll was alarmingly low.

         Or maybe being a part of a death toll far exceeding one billion altered one’s perception of what was high and low when it came to any such afterlife business. That had to be a valid point, Bucky mused, allowing his thoughts of such weighted ideas to be swathed in irony, in passivity, in a dissociative mindset that Shuri had taken such care to be be rid him of back in Wakanda because it wasn’t conducive to memory retrieval. There was, however, only so much of Sam Wilson’s driveling he could take before tuning in, after helping that girl to the queue of civilians being loaded into the last salvageable ambulances.

         “I mean, I got _nothin!_ ” he exclaimed, biting a white bandage at the middle with his teeth and wrapping it swiftly around a burn on the arm of a middle-aged man, whose mind was neither here nor there so Bucky felt comfortable enough vocalizing in front of him. Bucky traced the stranger’s line of sight to a few paces south where a baseball cap lied in a heap of debris and retrieved it before replying.

         “He’s obviously exhausted. Banner said he collapsed, is resting inside…”

         The man looked at Bucky, after handing him the cap, in reverence for a long, long time, such that by the time he landed on the soft silt for a minute of rest he blinked the invasive gaze away.

         “Shit, we’re all ‘exhausted.’ I just…I just thought that, well, you know…”

         Wilson was skirting around facts and replacing them with implicated stutters, whimpers of things he didn’t feel like he should say. Bucky recalled the idiosyncrasy from those days spent prior to his transportation to Wakanda, when Wilson used to doubt his involvement in it all. It was a rightful worry to have, for sure.

         He didn’t need to worry now. Everything and anything were laid out on the table, the table being utter earthly destruction and Bucky having virtually come back from the dead two times over.

         “You can say it,” he assured, staring at his boots and rubbing a filthy palm in his eyes, easing strain he was only just realizing was there.

         “It’s…it’s been five years. I thought we’d get a more ‘holy shit’ reaction outta him,” Wilson confided. He was staring at a secondary wound on the man’s forehead, nothing to be overly concerned about. “Ya know?”

         Bucky knew but didn’t agree. Couldn’t agree. Didn’t feel like agreeing. Some permutation of the three.

         “We haven’t been here. Judging by what Banner’s told me, it hasn’t been an easy ride. He needs a minute, or a thousand.”

         Wilson dabbled a lump of cotton and rubbing alcohol on the forehead, careful to not let the fluid drip onto the man’s reddened nose.

         “For sure. Can’t imagine the shit he’s seen, and God knows I _haven’t_ seen it,” he reasoned, trying to sound calm. “All I got from him was a little nod. Not like he was all that tight with Stark, that can’t be it…”

         “Things are different, Wilson –”

         With some undue force, Wilson shoved the bottle of rubbing alcohol back in a medics’ satchel he had attached to his hip, jaw set. That jagged attitude was coming out, the side of Wilson that contradicted that modernized, military nobility Bucky thought – Bucky _hoped_ – would’ve died out in his first lifetime. Turns out it thrived well into his third.

         “Ain’t shit different. You’re gonna tell me he’s not used to this carnage? He went to war. I went to war. _You_ went to war! And I don’t see you getting all quiet and clammed up…”

         This carnage was different. Bucky didn’t know who Sam was trying to fool by acting like it wasn’t. It was bigger and wasn’t manmade like every goddamn war was and ever had been, until 2018, at least. And Bucky was always quiet and clammed up.

         “He needs time. We can give him that much.  
         “Two minutes. Takes two minutes to stop fondling that Hammer, to wake up and…shit, what’s Thor call that thing? M-johl-nire…?”

         Bucky was too busy picking the dust he’d rubbed into his own eye to take humor in his butchered pronunciation of a cosmic weapon. “N’ got no ‘dea…” he muttered instead.

         “Doesn’t matter. But, Buck, seriously.”

         “Buck” squinted in Wilson’s direction, jarred only a little bit (just a little) at hearing that version of his name uttered in conjunction with any sort of sincerity. The man was feeling his head now, still watching and eavesdropping to no end.

         “You weren’t there four…er, shit, _nine_ years back. When all that was on Steve’s mind was _you_. You can’t go through all that and let it fall by the wayside now. It doesn’t make sense…”

         Bucky could _make_ it make sense, no matter the tightness now blooming across his ribs. The ash must’ve been getting to him.

         “He wasn’t alone then like he’s been lately. And you’ve seen him, launching Thor’s hammer like he came right from outer space or something.” Sam’s face was growing despondent. “He’s changed. We can’t blame him for it.”

         Quickly, Bucky was realizing that without any definitive villain in their midst, he had nowhere to direct his emotions at. It was burning a hole in his throat as he spoke.

         “I don’t buy it. And you shouldn’t either,” Wilson reprimanded, brushing his hands on his pants. “You know him better than anyone.”

         That’s why this was throwing him for a loop, and that’s why Steve’s appearance a few hundred feet away was shooting a bullet through the feigned but desperate friendship Wilson and Bucky were attempting to fabricate. He knew Steve so well because, at the end of the day, Bucky had lost hold on his identity and used Steve’s to replace it. Despite Shuri’s best efforts and her pleas for him to stop relying on Steve to be the basis of his memory retrieval, he’d remained that sticking point. He hadn’t ever changed, not _really_ , not since Bucky had started taking the time to remember, something he forewent a lot as a child and wished to death he could undo.

         So Bucky knew “better than anyone” that Steve really was different nowadays and wasn’t ready to put either party through the pain of acknowledging that. He’d gotten the message. He’d keep his distance. Respect the space. Recalibrate the way Shuri had intended, the way the rest of the world would have to, as well.

         “Exactly. That’s why I’m reading him loud ‘n clear,” he answered, knowing it was harsh. “And staying away until he feels ready.”

         Wilson opened his mouth to say something, gave Bucky a moment of pause to marvel at how angry he could get while they both were so drained, when the forgotten subject of Wilson’s care interjected. His voice was hollow and weary but caught their attentions all the same.

         “Are…are you two talking about Captain America?”

         Bucky bit his lip to prevent himself from saying “no,” because that would have been the truth and would’ve blown whatever fucking ridiculous cover/codes of conduct the Avengers wrote down a lifetime and a half ago with that Fury character mediating.

         “And here I thought you’d gone senile on us,” Wilson jived, sending a smile Bucky couldn’t help but consider genuine. Something that tasted like envy formulated on his tongue.

         The man gulped and indicated, fortunately, to Wilson. “I…I recognize you, from the news…years ago…”

         “A friend. We’re talking about a mutual friend, I guess you could say.”

         “Well…well I hope your friend comes to his senses soon. You…you need not worry…” the third party answered, slowly. Bucky wondered for a moment if he was dying and decided, with that man right then and there, that if he witnessed another death he’d become violently ill.

         “The Bible…Jeremiah tells us…of patience, of the Lord’s plan…”

         He broke out into a coughing fit and Wilson wrapped an arm underneath his, lifting them both their feet and heading in the direction of the ambulances, of Steve, of whatever version of Captain America the universe decided to spit out.

         “C’mon, buddy. Don’t want the “Lord” claiming you just yet…” Wilson joked, turning back to face his kind-of-almost friend and confirming that he was going to pester Steve after seeing that man to safety. Bucky, giving up and realizing the Catholic in his heart had been shattered to pieces long ago, wondered if they’d rescued a televangelist, or a street-corner preacher, or just a man who reverted to the old when the new got too rough.

         Either way, there was sympathy between Bucky’s ribs, and he kicked a few rocks as he recalled the verse from Jeremiah, gave the finger to a maybe-God, and fought the flames in his esophagus.

 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

       -Jeremiah 29:11

 

That same day survivors, those who were of the super sort, were shuffled into a government-sanctioned safehouse. Bucky doubted the extent of such a government, but the roof was solid, the water was clean, the food good, and there wasn’t any international panic surrounding what, he gathered, _used_ to be the Avengers, so his heart slowed down a few beats.

         While he cleared away rubble Bucky remembered all the stories Steve told him during his time in Wakanda, of their travels, the sight-seeing, the big crime-fighting and the small. Despite the jagged hole running between their old union, with him and Stark being worlds apart, there still appeared to be a flame that burned inside them both that refused to be extinguished. Bucky wished, suddenly, that they’d spent more time analyzing that bond rather than prodding his battered and Hydra-fried brain for recollections they knew would only come when they were ready. Maybe, if they’d done the former instead, Bucky would have a better sense of sympathy for the constant grieving around him.

         He was just left to his own devices, really, probably not wanted in the mourners’ hub due to his involuntary yet cruel past relation to the deceased. How was he to know, if he didn’t bother asking? That’s where Steve kept dwelling. That’s why he couldn’t establish his presence there. Not only was the scent unique to old death rotting in his nostrils, the smell that comes with tears and misplaced sadness, but Steve would be partaking in it, and, dammit, if Bucky hadn’t seen those same firm lips cram themselves into the most pitiful attempt at stoicism more than enough times, Bucky didn’t –

         “H-Hey! You’ve been out here for ages!”

         It was a vaguely familiar voice from just that afternoon. Moments after that secondary snap, it’d been the only sense of reason anyone bothered to share with him and Wilson. He looked up attentively, noticing only then that his hair and eyelashes were growing slick with new-fallen rain.

         “We’re supposed to take shifts, you know,” Banner announced from the door of the safehouse. It was stationed just a few dozen feet from the epicenter of Thanos’ destruction so as to provide easy relief access. But they’d already discussed halting the relief effort; all survivors had been excavated and only Stark, really, knew what technology was worth salvaging. Bucky was killing time in its most depressing sense.

         “Captain’s orders,” Banner finished. He was squinting at Bucky now. Something was being juggled in his left hand, next to his hip.

         “Sam says you haven’t slept, and he’s exhausted. Aren’t you tired?”

         Positively exhausted he was. The mere mentioning of sleep was enough to bring a yawn to Bucky’s face, which he tried to stifle and swallow but failed. Banner was growing impatient and resorted to a more primal suggestion.

         “C’mon. You’re at least thirsty.” He raised a water bottle in the air, and Bucky gave in. The fumes of the rain were mixing unpleasantly with the torn and tattered earth and concrete.

         “I was friends with him,” Banner added, once Bucky was about to extend his arm to accept the sustenance. “I mean, we all were, of course. But…ah…”

         He scratched the back of his head, adjusted his glasses, and fought to meet Bucky’s gaze. For the first time, Bucky didn’t feel like he was looking at the face of destruction, just a man whose pants were a bit too big around the ankles who laughed when he was nervous. Steve had taken a liking to him.

         “What I’m trying to say is that he would want you with everybody. Tony is… _was_ an asshole, sure, but we shredded a lot of that bullshit once this went down.”

         Bucky took the water bottle but didn’t unscrew the lid. He stared for a long while, stared until raindrops from his tangled bangs was beating his eyelids shut.

         “Thank you,” he finally managed, wondering how Banner felt about committing so much violence and being able to control none of it. In the middle of their similarities dawning on him like rockets, he was escorted into manmade warmth that was trying its hardest to shun the cold.

         Silence filled the inside, silence interspersed with tissue wipes, footsteps, tiny laughs, sighs, sobs, and the occasional sentence fragment. What Bucky had to marvel at, however, was the synchronization with which they still managed to operate. Where there was a running nose there was a Kleenex box being extended in their direction, where there was a thirst there was water, where there were tears there were shoulders not rain-spattered but just as damp as Bucky’s. There was still a unity here, but something left to be desired, something absent apart from Stark.

         _Steve_ wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

         “Cap’s been resting,” Banner announced as he read Bucky’s wandering eyes like a book he’d authored himself. “Should be up and running shortly.”

Banner left Bucky once he was sure the wayward member of the revived party wasn’t to go running with his tail between his legs back outside. No one seemed to dwell on Steve’s absence very much, either, but it was aching Bucky’s insides, until a blip of movement caught his eye from the safehouse’s posterior windows and he launched into an investigative pursuit.

         Wilson exited through the back door once Bucky made it to the best vantage point: leaned up against the rearmost wall while peering casually outside. Bucky watched his burned uniform adjust and squirm with his steps, which were excited and swift, toward an identity he could barely make out. He’d shed the wings and the goggles, wore nothing but a bright, sunny expression in the face of, Bucky assumed, their only common denominator.

         He switched places to trade his view of Wilson for the real object of his search and, through his shock that raked through his gut like a bullet to the small intestine, found it in him to grin over Steve’s predictability. Wilson had made it seem like he’d just taken a power nap for the hell of it; obviously he’d been ordered to lie down and rest after the fight of their lives and was blatantly ignoring such instructions by bolting out into the oncoming downpour. _He was taking all the goddamn stupid with him._

         The first thing Bucky noticed was the surprise on his face, the way his eyebrows went deadpan, and how his mouth fell open to reveal a rim of perfect white teeth, the only thing the serum hadn’t repaired because it hadn’t needed to; he’d been born with one hell of a smile. He still wore the bottom half of his suit, which remained caked in blood and ash and the miscellaneous fluid and collateral of galactic battle. There were circles under his eyes and a frost in his cheeks Bucky associated solely with the spell-binding illnesses he used to succumb to on a weekly basis.

         But then, as Wilson attempted to hand him something in an outstretched hand, Steve clamped so hard down on his shoulders, nestled him in so tight to his chest clad in thin, white cotton, his energy sparked memories in Bucky, just like the way Shuri described. He’d assumed he’d long since been done recovering those things, but this recollection was so primitive and fraught it was enough to burn Bucky’s eyes (or was that dehydration talking? He had yet to open the bottle of water). He let his own lips part and watched as Wilson, shocked, slipped the mystery object in the thigh holster of Steve’s uniform and give his hands purchase. He clung to Steve until even his own shoulders bounced with tears both relieved and overwhelmed.

         Bucky was moving before he could think better of it. For one thing, he needed to persuade Steve to lie back down. He was good at that; he’d spent ages perfecting his methods of convincing Steve to take his own health seriously for once in his life. He also needed to confirm that this display of emotion did, in fact, belong to the Steve of the year 2023 and no other. 2018 Steve would weep like this, maybe, in the cover of Wakandan starlight. And Bucky didn’t remember much of 2014 Steve, only that he appeared unreasonably emotional at the time (such a theory was reinforced by Wilson’s storytelling).

Steve of their first lifetime had been both the strongest and weakest person Bucky had ever encountered, though even in his weakness he was brave, admirable, and contagiously and infectiously noble. The look on his face was reminiscent of that age, more than anything, reminded Bucky of the absolute absurdity that took hold of Steve’s expression when he found the latest way to self-flagellate and sacrifice himself for whatever greater good was available. Bucky hoped and prayed, already reversing that religious upheaval he’d had merely an hour prior, to whatever divinity was listening that this greater good was the last one, was Steve’s last fucking hurrah…

Things wouldn’t be like how they were, ever. There had been too much tragedy and time for that. Bucky knew that back in Wakanda, knew it in those flashes of moments wherein he remembered the weight of Steve’s presence in Bucky’s before. Before Hydra, before the train, immediately before the fall when Steve’s arm extended was the most angelic manifestation of Christ he’d ever encountered, such that it beat back his virulent wartime atheism. Steve was ravenous about the past in those instances, which made every meeting of theirs in Wakanda all the more fruitful, intense, and frantic.

Things couldn’t be like that. Patience wore thin, patience grew tired and old and frail. It was a spiritual discipline, yes, Bucky knew that, but his old Lord was supposed to be forgiving. Surely, since Steve had let his patience, over a hundred years of it, falter, he’d be alright. Bucky couldn’t blame him, not for any of it. No matter the touches nor intimacy they shared five years ago, he’d been preparing to be an installation of the past. Hell, it had only been Steve to make him feel like something _besides_ that.

Bucky didn’t have patience anymore. He liked to think it died at the hands of Hydra, back when he’d been waiting and begging for death in the smallest part of his brain, that which they were supposed to have exterminated, that which held Steve’s sunflower-field hair in a locked metal box. But Bucky, in that moment, remembered that his patience had died and turned into something darker back when he used to wait for death on the battle field. He was without the only constant he’d ever known, without the golden-ribboned scalp leading him through each circle of Hell, and he let his patience for his homecoming mold over and age into jaded resignation.

Bucky had been waiting for death for over one hundred years. He’d thought he’d been dealt the final blow twice. And now, as he stood before Steve, looking ethereal in the petrichor of that someday-in-2023 rain, Bucky was sure it would come again in an instant. The moment was too complete to be true.

Wilson let his arms fall away and stood, clearing his throat, at Steve’s side. Bucky couldn’t comprehend the way Steve dwarfed him. He also couldn’t comprehend the way Steve was looking at him and wondered instead if this was just the final stage of that eternal post-snap darkness, if, somehow, he'd made it to Heaven.

“Steve…Banner told me…told me you should…”

If he had any agency over his limbs, he would’ve brought the water to his lips because the words kept dying on his tongue. But somewhere a hundred miles away Bucky heard the bottle hit the ground. Too far to be reached.

Steve didn’t know what to make out of Bucky, it seemed. He scanned him over and over again, searching like Bucky had from the shadows for any confirmation that this was really him, from the right timeline, from the right era, and not from some twisted prank the cosmos was choosing to enact.

“Cap pretty much passed out once Stark…once Stark didn’t make it. Guess the Hammer has its side effects, huh?”

Wilson had forgiven Steve a hundred times over, by the looks of it. And he was certainly telling the truth. The fatigue was nearly tangible. It hung in the air that surrounded Steve and embarked him in a battle against it. Bucky moved, slowly, barely, to cut through its thickness.

“Had a nasty dream that nothing worked, that Stark died, and we weren’t there to help,” Wilson explained after taking a glance at Steve and understanding that he was going to be speechless for the duration of that recap.

The dream sounded horribly familiar, the kind symptomatic of something Steve should never have been straddled with but was so familiar to wartime soldiers and superheroes alike. Bucky, to convey an apology for such a nightmare, reached to touch Steve’s pale, exposed skin along his forearm.

“I know that kind…” Bucky murmured, meaning it but knowing the comment to be meaningless, just uttered to take up some space. Soon he even felt Wilson’s stare depart, accompanied by the soft click of the safehouse’s back door. It didn’t spur Steve into any action, not yet.

“I’m sorry, about Stark…I, well, I don’t really know what…”

Steve swallowed. Bucky was close enough now to watch the ball of his throat quiver and dip with the movement, an entrancing thing. He fought to keep his hard-fought resignation, despite its toxicity. Any second now one of them would get shot in the side of the head.

“You know it feels like two seconds? Since the…what happened. Since Wakanda. Banner told me enough, I guess. He’s not so bad. You were right, nice guy when he’s not –“

“It was so real,” Steve whispered, finally, finally reaching back to meet Bucky, whose arms went electric at the sensation. It’d felt like two seconds and two eternities all in the same breath.

“Your dream?”

Steve dipped his head in a nod, steepled his brows as he took in every inch of a Bucky who didn’t think he looked much different from their previous encounter. It wasn’t until his hands threaded themselves in his hair that Steve fired the first shots into Bucky’s resignation, however, who cowered with the blow.

“I did everything right and you…you never showed…and when I woke up, Sam was just right there, and I couldn’t…”

Bucky had half the urge to deck Wilson for his insensitivity but was too lost in Steve’s swimmy, swarming eyes to complete the thought. And eventually his hand, all scratched and wounded, found Bucky’s arm, the metal one, the Vibranium one, the arm that reminded Bucky that, really, he shouldn’t be alive but _was,_ against the universe’s own impressive volition.

“I don’t wanna overwhelm you or nothin’…” Bucky slipped, some old colloquialism rearing its ugly upper eastside head. “I thought you didn’t want…”

It sounded ridiculous as Bucky said it. Steve reinforced the notion with a look of incredulity as his hands found Bucky’s neck, a temperate touch so contrary to Thor’s Hammer, to the blood, to the lives they’d been made to take and to witness end.

“I waited, and…Buck, it felt like for _ever_ …”

Bucky smiled, felt the dust fill in the lines of age around his cheeks and eyes, forgot the dryness of his throat and the way his lips were split open.

“I know you waited. I can’t believe you did…”

Steve never lost his patience. It didn’t make sense, how someone could remain so steadfast and constant. But God, it was contagious. It was heat radiating from his middle, the same fire that kept him alive every winter in Brooklyn, surviving off broth and hope alone. Bucky was weak in the knees at the thought of it.

He’d been through five years. He was so close to breaking, some brutish force determining whether or not to throw the man made of glass against the wall just to hear how he shattered. Bucky would, no doubt, bloody his hands with the reparation effort.

He grazed a finger along the fold of Steve’s top and bottom eyelid, the way that used to make him crazy when they would lay entwined in Wakanda, cloaked in sweat. He put on his brave face and vowed with his expression to protect Steve against the world, the way he did the day he was drafted, the day Sarah Rogers died, each and every time a Brooklyn passerby laid into him. Steve got chills and beamed like he used to. Things were safe and stable; full speed ahead.

“You’re a patient man,” Bucky mouthed, closing the gap between them, reducing them both to naught but a tangle of limbs so familiar they kissed like conversation. But every move meant the world, moved mountains, told the powers and forces and divine figures that be to go off and fuck themselves. They didn’t need the Lord to create a plan for them. Bucky didn’t want Him to. He was happy where he was and let his resignation bleed into Steve’s righteous patience, until the unit shed away into reward and relief and bliss.

 

**\---**

 

The scenery reminded Bucky of a northern, upstate Wakanda, if there ever was such a thing. Wilson kept telling him that everything reminded Bucky of that paradise on Earth because that’s all he was really able to recall clearly. Steve branded the retort harsh; Bucky felt glad that someone finally just walked on the fucking egg shells scattered at his feet.

It was pleasant, however, as pleasant as a funeral could be. Stark had picked a fine location for a family unit, right on the lake, shrouded in trees, all signs of a man trying his best to build a makeshift barrier to separate himself from the real world. Bucky kept those comments to himself, however, because he was one of the few attendees not crying and, truly, was starting to feel for the man, even if it was post-mortem. And there was no denying how fantastically brave Pepper was being, surely for the sake of their daughter. It reminded Bucky of his own mother, and he made a note to tell Shuri of the recollection.

They listened to Stark’s parting message and dissipated, each into their own corner, their own group, their own subsection of a collective consciousness. It was much different than any funeral he’d been to; there were smiles here, stories exchanged about Stark’s assholery and tragic hero complex that Bucky found more sad than humorous but resolved to believe that he just wasn’t “in the know” enough to appreciate the anecdotes.

Steve was composed and soothing, as was expected. He never lingered too long nor spoke too much. He bounced their daughter on his knee, relished in her jovial laughter. He walked the length of their small dock and back. It was there, however, that Bucky watched him crack and leak a little bit of personality; he was walking toe-to-toe to balance on the edge.

“You really couldn’t’ve grabbed a suit anywhere?” Wilson interjected suddenly, the moment Lang motioned for Steve, causing him to end his respite from his role as seasoned mourner, pinnacle of poise, et cetera. Bucky watched sadly as it faded.

“I was told to wear black.”

“Yeah, by me. I figured you’d get what I meant.”

Bucky absorbed his smirk. “I asked you what the dress code was. You said _black_. Very sardonically, if I might add.”

Wilson handed him an hors d’oeuvre Bucky couldn’t identify. He slipped it past his lips anyway.

“I can’t believe you don’t own a single goddamn suit…”

“Hey, if you wanna go retrieve whatever remains of my belongings at the nearest Hydra base, you be my guest.”

Wilson snorted, shaking his head to look up at the sky, which was now breaking its overcast trend of the day. Sunshine peeked through and drew potent shadows on the yellowed grass.

“Get stuck in that white supremacist fuckery? No thanks, not for me,” he announced, letting loose a chortle. Bucky grinned, swallowing the last of the mystery food and enjoying the savory flavor it left behind.

Both parties turned their heads at the sound of a child’s screech; Barton’s youngest kid was chasing the Stark’s with a stick he fashioned into what looked like an arrow. It was commanding a lot of attention. It was drawing a lot of smiles. Despite the shoelaces tied across Bucky’s ribs, he found the space to let tranquility bloom. It was a sacred moment.

But it was one he couldn’t find Steve participating in. He found the object of his search seated a few paces west underneath what Bucky somehow knew to be an apple tree (would Shuri be able to place that one?), gazing out onto a lake so still it looked a dream. Making sure Wilson was enraptured by the scene of youthful bliss amidst tragedy, he snuck away, making noise with his footsteps once he was a safe distance near Steve so as to alert him of his presence.

Steve didn’t look up right away, just slid to the side to make room. Bucky made note that the toes of his shoes were caked in mud and of the two divots in the soil; he’d been digging his feet. He’d been thinking.

“It’s beautiful here,” Steve remarked. “Tony had it right.”

There was so much guilt in those syllables that Bucky didn’t know how Steve didn’t choke on it all.

“Wilson’s unhappy with how I’m dressed,” he replied, blunt as could be.

“Yeah, you could’ve tried a little harder,” Steve answered, breaking his gaze. His guise of fake criticism cracked in an instant; he folded in on himself and slid further down the bench. The branches overhead were parted in such a way that the strawberry blonde head of his blew up in flames of sunlight.

“Did he hate me?” Bucky asked, before thinking better of it.

“He wanted to.” Steve rubbed his nose. “He had lots of anger, but I don’t think he hated.”

That didn’t ease Bucky at all, and Steve knew as much. That’s how he knew it was honest. That moment was the closest he’d gotten to sharing in that pool of grief and empathy bubbling a distance behind them.

“What’s on your mind?” Bucky asked, genuinely curious. It could be one of dozens of things.

Steve shifted a bit again, eyes flitting toward a stir in the lake, only to pause and breathe again when the ripples died away.

“Just…trying to figure out how the hell we’re going to move past all this. I mean, Natasha was enough. This just feels…”

Bucky let the thought die, watched it quiver, stammer, and succumb on feeble, wobbly knees. The hurt that was playing across Steve’s forehead, a plane of skin just now daring to show signs of age, signs of, dare he say it, imperfections. It was a wondrous thing to stare at, the way it folded and fell with his expressions and speech.

“You’re allowed to be tired, you know,” Bucky assured. Their fighting, that which they’d been sharing for so long, was a sad commonality, though it came with the perk of being the sole companion with whom Steve could discuss such things.

“I know. I am,” Steve admitted. “I think I’m having trouble with…with that Tony said. That he wanted to see us celebrating, wanted to see us moving on and happy.”

“I think the first step is pretty clear: _stop_ fighting.”

Bucky said it in humor, with a giggle catching the tips of his syllables, staining them gold like the seven o’clock sun just starting to blend into the horizon. Yet, deeper, where the trees couldn’t touch and the eye couldn’t see, there was sincerity.

“This is the first time in…hell, _ever_ that I feel like that’s _actually_ feasible. And I’m supposed to like that kind of thing.”

Bucky gave him a glance sideways, peeling his easy stare from a duck skirting across the water.

“Supposed to?”

“I’m the one who, literally, signed up for all this, when I enlisted. It’s supposed to have been the point. It’s what they all wanted, Erskine, Phillips, Peggy…”

Bucky saw Steve grasp for a second at his pants’ pocket before he remembered it was his turn to speak.

“I think we’re all destined to get burned out eventually. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t.” For a second, a self-indulgent millimeter of time, Bucky took stock of the work that the serum had done to Steve through the black of his funeral best. “And I doubt they expected all _this_.”

Steve looked at him without warning, head on and unabashedly. There was a spark of something old and borrowed in his eyes, a note of sarcasm he couldn’t place.

“You don’t gotta be my therapist, you know,” he mused, and when he noticed the embarrassment cascading down Bucky’s cheeks, he backtracked hard. “I mean…you didn’t want any of this. At all. You didn’t sign up for this life.”

He was right. That was something Bucky’d had trouble grappling with in the initial rush of returning memories, how he’d spent so much of his first lifetime wrapped in something he couldn’t stand. No part of Bucky Barnes was designed to enjoy nor take pride in the blood and ichor of enemies spilling out of holes blown by his bullet. He hated the terror, the adrenaline, the calamity, and the dehumanization of it all. When Hydra had him in their clutches, death was imminent, his patience was shattered, and he resigned to that end.

Steve showed up, of course, and no matter how many times he reviewed that story its ending still surprised him.

“Well, I couldn’t just leave you to dry out there,” he answered, suddenly small and receding in on himself. “Even if you were serum-jacked and all.”

Bucky still doubted the degree to which Steve needed him during that year of 1944, no matter how many summer evenings he spent assuring him in between kisses of just that back in Wakanda. Bucky knew it was that masochistic streak in himself talking, the same streak that used to make him chase after girls and deny and shove and suppress so much.

Steve was thinking about the past now though, and not the fresh one. Somehow, the good ol’ days seemed the most painful, and as Bucky was kicking himself for bringing it up at all, Steve dug into that bulging pocket. He removed a compass with a familiar face inside it, and Bucky was sent tumbling. His blood ran cold; he was convinced Wilson had come by and shoved him into the lake.

“I’m glad you remember, even if it hurts,” Steve said. “That’s probably selfish of me. But it…feels good. To know that someone else knows.”

Bucky manually pushed down a lump that had formed in the small of his throat, as though pressing a jammed eject button. “You heard Stark. We’re being invited to be selfish here.”

Bucky was selfish. Always. Always when it came to Steve. Selfish with his time, his care, his affection, his speech, his humor, his touch, his love. He was being selfish now, picturing Steve bare in Wakanda, moving like an arch of sunlight overtop him and sighing with the effort. He was selfish in remembering the way he spoke to Bucky in between his punches, in between “his mission,” his efforts to beat him senseless, and the way the world came crashing into place with those damned words. He was selfish in remembering the way Steve rescued him from flames, kissed him under the stars in Italy and in New York, in the way Steve had needed taken care of and how he let Bucky do just that.

He had Stark to thank for all that selfishness now, too.

Steve flicked the compass shut, but Agent Peggy Carter’s stern brown eyes, red lips, and inquisitive gaze were flashing across Bucky’s eyelids. He could match the very color of her red dress to the gore they used to spill in Germany. God, how she’d hated Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.

“I think the problem is that the world isn’t made for us here, Buck,” he announced, like he’d known it all along, like a snot-nosed graduate reaching the thesis of his bar-side discussion. It didn’t suit Steve; he was being facetious.

“You could say that again.”

The screen door of Stark’s lakeside cabin flapped open. Or shut. Bucky didn’t turn to look, though was keenly aware of where they were and what was going on for the first time since their exchange started. Had anyone been listening?

“But I think…I mean, it’s just a thought, but with all that Tony and Bruce came up with…there’s a way to get _around_ that.”

Steve paused. He turned back to face where the crowd had once been and dipped his head upon noting their absence.

“That _and_ a way to be selfish. To honor Tony’s final wishes.”

Bucky’d taught Steve to dance on the floor of their Brooklyn apartment the winter his mother died. He’d been feeling too ill to accompany Bucky on his innumerable double-date attempts and, instead of pretending like the world kept on turning without Steve Rogers when it simply didn’t, Bucky cleaned up the record player his mother had gifted him ages ago, grabbed Steve by the thinning wrists, and instructed him to put on his best shoes. The confusion he wore was priceless and almost as enchanting as the silly, double-jointed way he tried to lead Bucky in a sway to Billie Holiday.

Now he’d share the talent he didn’t have with Peggy. Bucky saw it in him, the way his eyes glossed over in remembrance of what could’ve been, had he only got the timing right. Bucky hoped she’d go easy on him, wouldn’t curse the asshole sergeant who was supposed to have taught him all things concerning rhythm, so he could go win all the girls and make Bucky irreparably jealous, jealous to the point where his stomach was spinning with missed opportunities and things left unsaid.

She was beautiful, just like him. He saw a side of her Bucky couldn’t, that was all. And Bucky didn’t have to worry about his patience being for nothing. He’d just slip right back into resignation and watch the world move beyond him.

“I mean, only if you’re gonna be selfish with me, and all. Kinda hard to find someone accustomed to both 2023 and 1950. Well, _about_ 1950\. _Approximately._ I need to find the best year to buy a plot of land in the middle of nowhere. Mom always wanted a garden, not a farm, with the forest in the backyard, but she was always so worried about me getting ticks in the tall grass. We don’t have to worry as much, I’m guessing, even though they don’t have bug spray back then like they do now. I heard they hate lavender. And lemon. Mosquitos, I mean. We can just bottle that stuff up and –“

“Steve,” Bucky interrupted, breathless, Agent Peggy Carter shattered at his feet.

He cocked his head to the right, looking stupidly innocent. “W-what?”

Bucky’s hand had traveled to Steve’s bicep and stayed there. He hadn’t the power to move it. He merely required stability. The light at the end of that God-awful tunnel was subverting to stare at for too long.

“You don’t want…?” Steve questioned. He was falling fast, and finally Bucky sprang into motion.

“No! No. I just…you gotta slow down. Are you…”

“I need to return the Infinity Stones to their respective timelines. To make sure the universe doesn’t, you know, implode on itself. Banner tried to explain the intricacies but seems like only Tony could hold my attention for very long.”

Bucky wondered if it was too self-centered to weep for joy at someone else’s funeral.

“And, well, I haven’t _committed_ to the idea yet, but we…we could just go back. To where we’re supposed to be. We’re old enough now, right? We’d fit in.”

Bucky couldn’t tell if Steve was asking for permission, validation, both, or even neither. He was lost in the way Steve kept clenching and unclenching his fingers along Bucky’s free hand, lost in the way the sunset was making pink and lavender color in Steve’s cheeks.

“I don’t want to…to take you away from anything. But, hell, if I could have anything, this would be it, and…”

“What about Peggy?”

He had to know. He craved the details. Bucky was such a fucking masochist.

“She’s…she’s happy. I’ve seen her, in the 70s. She’s married, beautiful, has children, strong. The works.” A faraway look overtook Steve’s face. “She doesn’t need this sack of memories. And she wasn’t…wasn’t what I needed. I thought maybe she could be, but…”

Steve’s hand didn’t stop squeezing.

“I’m tired of waiting, Buck. Every time I wait, we get ourselves screwed again.”

“Good thing I keep coming back then, huh?” Bucky ruminated, immediately and deliberately and dangerously close to Steve.

“I’d like it best if you just stopped leaving.”

Tilting Bucky’s head ever so slightly, catching the evening sunlight, Steve kissed him slow, tasting the moment. Bucky’s heart had never been lighter. Years of blood were being washed from his palms, and he was being submerged in the only timeline he’d ever cared to recall.

 

**\---**

 

“C’mon, just when I was starting to like the guy?”

Wilson bounced and forth on his heels as Steve and Bucky suited up. Bucky couldn’t calculate his degree of sarcasm and didn’t really care to determine it. He did, however, feel the nagging pull of guilt that comes exclusively with being selfish. He’d known it well. Steve was only pretending to handle it.

“I’m only kidding, Cap,” Wilson assured him when he turned on his heels, bottom lip between his teeth. Bucky stifled a laugh, felt the pressure rake through his insides, and let Steve hop down from the platform with hardly a clatter or a thud.

“Don’t get all sentimental on me,” Wilson warned, taking Steve in with open arms. Bucky would never tell, not a soul, but the way his eyes shut during their embrace was more than indicative of emotional strain.

“You’re the best around, Sam,” Steve said into Wilson’s neck. The tenderness reminded Bucky of just how much this third party knew of his relationship to Steve; he ought to give him more credit, therefore, for being so tolerant of all Bucky had (unintentionally) put them through.

“It’s only five seconds. I think I can handle it,” he chuckled, releasing Steve but holding him at a distance, admiring the happenstance friends they’d made of each other. He had to have sensed something larger afoot. Even Banner did. Bucky could see it in the way his gaze kept flicking, this way and that, yet couldn’t come up with an adequate lie to assuage their anxieties.

“Only five seconds,” Banner reiterated. Steve departed from Wilson’s vicinity and went back to join Bucky. That warmth was still there, lulling Bucky into a sense of security. He hoped it was justified but didn’t particularly care if it wasn’t.

“Five seconds. Return the stones and make it back here in one piece. Got it?” Banner reviewed.

Bucky and Steve were inside each other’s eyes. They nodded. This time, Bucky spoke.

“Got it.”

The click of a button was all Bucky remembered, before his vision and auditory functions gave out.

Time travel felt like separation of the mind and body, the absolute opposite of the snap’s eternal, languid darkness that drowned its victims into a willing slumber. This sensation was raucous, violent, yet all the while the light of Steve Rogers remained a beacon, a sticking point, a harbor, and a far better plan than anything the Lord could’ve conjured in any verse of Jeremiah.

And time. Time became a thing of legend, became Bucky’s new, one and only God. Time made lavender plants grow, made the seasons change, made snow fall and dew drop on blades of grass. Time drew beautiful lines of ages in every contour and crevice of Steve Roger’s body. Time gave them space to love each other, gave them time to relearn each area of skin, each piece and fragment of intimacy. Bucky remembered how to take Steve in full, how to conjure his moans and how to earn two hands in his hair, squeezing, pulling, begging for release, which Bucky would provide, in time.

In return Bucky’s gut coiled and unloaded in fire, in heat, in energy, and notes of unadulterated want, each with Steve’s loopy signature trailing in their wake.

Time got them a small cabin in Kansas on the outskirts of a forest as wide and encompassing as the old streets of Brooklyn. Steve, and his mother, got their garden. Bucky got his peace and quiet to journal his memories, to write about his life. Time got them a dog, several, in fact, as the years piled on heavy.

Time got mornings wherein Steve woke up hours before Bucky to make him breakfast, just because. Time got Bucky late nights spent reading Steve to sleep. Time got evenings spent on their kitchen floor in their best shoes relearning how to dance and sway to Billie Holiday. Time got Steve and Bucky all the tender moments they’d had ripped from them in lifetimes passed.

Time was something Bucky Barnes worshipped after having been abused by it for so many twisted and confounded years. There was nothing to be resigned from or even patient about anymore. There was simply the art of being, which took a long time to master, but was made all the easier by having a partner in that crime against the universe, one who could relate on each and every level, one who would stay with him till the end of the line, wherever and whenever it would be drawn.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you're looking for some music to cry your Endgame feelings out to, I made a spotify playlist. The songs are in order from Steve and Bucky's childhood to the end of their story, wherever that might be for you. 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/vncnbcvgles664z4gse488rrq/playlist/0QU5LEKwy2Odpx3Urbq8M1?si=Ie_STXgwTRak19KjUp6eBw  
> just search "put tombstones at my head and feet" on spotify! <3


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